The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-05-09
SALT AND ITS SAVIOR.
Why the United States Have to I'M
port SO Much OF This Commodity.

why the united states Have To Inn
port So Much or This Commodity.
mot many people know that in
spite of the wonderful salt wells and
salt deposits in this country we annu-
ally import immense quantities OF
SALT" said II. B. Miller, commission
merchant, the other day. "Our i'm
portations are constantly increasing,
too, although the output of our own
salt factories keeps pace with the
growth of the population, and there is
q considerable duty on all kinds of salt.
The reason is that certain fine grades
and special kinds of salt are not made
in this country. You can get about as
good dairy or table salt from New York
or Michigan wells as from anywhere
in the world, but you can't get the
coarse salt used in packing meats for
export, the quickly dissolving Turks
island salt used in the ce-cream facto-
ries, nor the curious Spanish salts that
the strect-car companies sprinkle on
their tracks when they think Henry
Bergh isn't looking. All the domestic
salt except that which is mined in Lou
isiana, is mole by evaporatng, by ar
tiiicial heart, brine pumped out of the
earth. The very valuable coarse salt
which we import is made by evaporat-
ing sea water in the open air. 1t is
made where people can afford to wait
three or four months for few dollars.
Where's that? Well, along the Medi-
terranean, for instance. The people
there dam up a little bay aud wait I'M
til the sun and the winds have carried
the water away. 1t isn't very pure
salt that they scrape up of the mud,
but it is indispensable for some pur-
poses,
THE experiment of making solar salt
has been tried in this country, but with
out much success. The quality of the
sea water varies a good deal. 1t will
deposit one kind of salt on one island
and another perceptibly different, even
to the eye, on another island perhaps
not more than forty miles away. We
do an immense trade with the West
Indies in salt. There are dozen plac-
es that furnish altogether different
kinds of salt, and each has its particu-
lar use. One very fine and easily sol
uble variety is used in the flavoring of
chewing tobacco. Not many chewers
know this, but they would find out very
quickly that something was lacking
if the salt should be omitted. Some
physicians have thought that the pres
ence of the salt makes the tobacco very
injurious.
There isn't so much English dairy
salt imported as there used to be. At
one time manufacturers of fine butter
thought that their products would be
utterly ruined if anything but fine Eng
lish salt touched them. 1t isn't so now.
For one reason, American saltmakcrs
have learned the trick of making good
dairy salt, and for another, American
salt has got to be wonderfully cheap.
Out in the Saginaw region of Michigan
the salt wells are right by the side of
lumber mills. All that is necessary
is to attach to the mill machinery a
pump to draw up the brine and feed tho
sawdust and timber waste, which
would otherwise be thrown away. to tho
evaporating kettles. In that way salt
can be made for about II cents a bush
ell. Gentlemen who own salt wells and
lumber mills in Michigan are usually
rich enough to buy ont an ordinary
state. "-NeW York Commercial Adver-
tiSGr.
4